No cheers for the graduates

Scrutator had a good weekend last week.
There were graduation parties happening all over my village.
I drank myself numb but I am proud to say that I still behaved well even at those extreme levels of intoxication.
The invites haven’t stopped coming.
Yet the several shindigs were not without drama.
At some point during Saturday night I lost count of the fights that I witnessed.
I can’t remember how many flying bottles and fists missed my head.
I can’t tell how many idiots I had to strongly tell off after they tried to steal a mischievous touch at my backside on the dance floor.
I admit that on such men I used the strongest of words.
It’s however sad that some of the parties were ruined by some rowdy individuals who either could not control their consumption of the merry waters or were just jealous that they were not the ones who were capped.
Have you ever noticed that the spoilers at graduation parties are those individuals who during their school days specialised in bunking classes?
I mean those relatives that decided around Standard 6 or Grade A that they had learnt enough and walked out of school.
Every family has this one uncle, aunt or cousin that everyone wishes never makes it to the party.
These are the people you should always try to leave out of the list of invitees to a party, especially ones where academic achievement is being celebrated.
Honestly such riff-raff has no business attending parties that have anything to do with school.
Why should they benefit from a party meant to celebrate a thing they rejected in the first place?

While nursing my hangover on Monday morning, I had the privilege of perusing the NUL graduation ceremony programme.
I was amazed to find out that of all the students capped by His Majesty on Saturday, very few had graduated with distinctions and first class passes.
Most of the graduands barely scrapped through with some mediocre grades.
It’s a scandal that I, the daughter of ’MaScrutator, was actually fooled into gracing parties of some of these lucky-to-have-graduated individuals.
Can you imagine that 14 of the 29 Bachelor’s degrees did not have a single student who passed with a distinction?
Even the Home Economics degree did not have a distinction.
Scrutator is flabbergasted.
Yet that is not the only scandal.
Some degrees did not even have an Upper Second Class pass.
Will anyone raise a finger if I say that most of the students that graduated with degrees in agriculture, law, chemical technology, engineering in electronics, electronics, environmental science, and urban & rural planning are dunderheads.
This means that this year the university produced pathetic lawyers, environmentalists, electronic engineers and town planners.
If Scrutator had her way none of these students would have graduated.
Yes, you heard me right, absolutely none of them should have sat there in that arena wearing those hoods and pretending that they had reached the end of a four-year journey of hard work.

But I happen to know the answer to the question why most NUL students had to scrape through with pathetic grades.
No one in their right sense of mind can expect a university where most of the students literally worship beer to have people passing with flying colours.
I have seen these NUL students drink like there is no tomorrow.
Whoever runs that bar close to the university entrance must be making a killing. There is nothing wrong with university students drinking but our comrades at NUL seem to have taken the pastime a notch higher and forgot that they are there to learn.
So serious is this liquor guzzling business at the university that Scrutator is tempted to suggest that NUL should consider incorporating it into the college curriculum.
Here is the list of the suggested degrees that might correctly capture what most of the students there actually really value more than their education.
“Degree in Alcohol Abuse with a minor in Statistics.”
“Degree in Casual Sex with a minor in law.”
“Degree in Striking with a minor in engineering.”
“Honours degree in Partying.”

Perhaps the faculty that produced the most dunderheads this year is the School of Law.
So serious was the lack of quality in this year’s law class that the authorities decided that there was no graduand worth giving the Best Performing Law Student Award.
The authorities, perhaps concerned with the integrity of the school, decided to make it clear to the whole world that this year the law department produced chuff.
Let’s give some kudos to the authorities for conquering the temptation to lower standards just to save face.
I suspect the lack of quality was there for all to see so there was no way they could have managed to hide it.
There is an African idiom which says: “That which has horns cannot be covered up”.
This scandal had the horns of an elephant.
Of the nine merit awards available for the law school graduands only one was taken.
This means that this year no student exceptionally mastered legal studies, mercantile law, and human rights law.
At least the Law Society’s commission of inquiry now has one answer to the burning question of why the justice delivery system in this country is so lethargic.
Some of the lawyers are so green they spend half their careers trying to learn the lessons they failed to grasp at university.
They will spend most of their time asking for cases to be postponed because they need time to read elementary issues of law.
The commission also needs not be wasting its time asking why the government of Lesotho underpays lawyers.

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